Yesterday Sonos announced a patch which will (supposedly) fix the heinous POP OF DEATH problem that Sonos ARC soundbar customers have been enduring for years. As you may remember, I talked about this a while back... where playing Dolby Atmos content via either an AppleTV 4K or an Xbox will cause a loud POP! and kill your soundbar until you reset it. The only option you have to prevent it is to turn off Atmos. I have both of those devices, and bought the ARC soundbar specifically to play Dolby Atmos content. Then I went ahead and bought two Era 300 speakers for the rear channels in the hopes that Atmos would route through them and allow me to turn it back on. NOPE! It's all or nothing.

Needless to say, I sure hope that this patch actually works. Otherwise I've spent a hell of a lot of money for nothing.

I have been a massive Sonos fan for a very long time. Sure I've has occasional connectivity problems which Sonos Support always blamed on my network (despite my ditching two sets of routers and replacing them with a very expensive Amplifi Alien mesh network), but it hasn't dimmed my enthusiasm for their products. The sound is exceptional and the capabilities are fantastic. I still have occasional connectivity problems to this day, though I reject completely the idea that it's my network's fault. My network is rock solid... and far exceeds what's required to stream sound. Usually going in and manually changing the channel that Sonos is using is enough to fix things up. Until the next time.

But then the POP OF DEATH happened, and I've been "FUCK SONOS!" ever since.

Every time they announced layoffs I was all "GOOD! YOU DESERVE TO FAIL!"... while feeling sorry for the employees who were collateral damage because their fucking management wouldn't allocate the resources required to solve a huge fucking problem that caused their products to fail for the very purpose they were designed. Remember... this problem has been going on for years!

I had it in my head that I would never buy another Sonos product ever again because this was so absurdly fucking shitty.

So when Sonos announced today that they are cutting even more jobs and focusing on developing headphones, I am not swayed. Why would I buy some expensive headphones that could ship with a massive defect that takes the company YEARS to fix? No thanks. I'll continue to buy Apple or Bose headphones, because I'm done with Sonos.

Or am I?

Honestly I don't know.

I'd sure like to think so. But maybe they will come out with something so awesome and revolutionary that I'd be willing to give them a chance if the price is right.

Regardless, Sonos is a cautionary tale of how a beloved brand can trash their own reputation and flush customer good will down the toilet. If a problem comes to your attention, you'd better fucking drop what you're doing and fix it... quickly... because you're never the only game in town, and brand loyalty only goes so far.

UPDATE: Color me fucking shocked...

Fourth time was a charm... well, that and two reboots (unplugging and plugging back in again). I watched a movie on my AppleTV 4K and no POP OF DEATH, so far. So that's refreshing.

NEWSFLASH @ Ars Technica: Sonos has been unable to fix Arc soundbars’ “pop of death” for over 2 years.

Ever since the technology became available for home theaters, I've wanted Dolby Atmos, the specialized sound system which adds a "height" channel to your surround sound setup. So that when you are watching John Wick and it's raining overhead... or a bullet goes flying above you... you hear it happening. It's a very cool effect (when done properly) that adds to the experience of watching movies and television... or listening to Atmos music.

I have been investing in a Sonos speak setup, which has been a pretty good solution for home audio. It's wireless so you don't have to run speaker cables, and you can group some (or all) of your speakers so that your audio is playing everywhere you have a Sonos speaker.

At first I had a Sonos PlayBar. It was an amazing soundbar for under your television. Sure, the separation between Left/Center/Right channels wasn't the best, but it was a darn good effort that I enjoyed for years.

Then Sonos released their Arc soundbar which added the afore-mentioned Dolby Atmos.

I waited for the reviews, heard good things, and bought one.

Then I went to crazy trouble to install it in my living room.

It was okay. The Dolby Atmos height channel was incredibly weak (even when set at full volume) and I don't think the quality was quite up to the standards of the PlayBar, but I was pretty happy with it overall.

Then Sonos released the Era 300, which also had the Dolby Atmos height channel for your rear speakers. This was a far, far better implementation of the Atmos effect, and I was very happy to have purchased them.

Until I wasn't.

One day while watching a movie I heard a massive POP sound and my Arc soundbar went dead. I thought it had died a horrible death... but unplugging it and plugging it back in did the trick. Until I experienced the POP again. And again. And again. And again! Apparently once it happens, it will continue to happen forever.

Sonos's solution is to turn off CRC (which turns on your television when your AppleTV turns on), which didn't work for me. Their next "solution?" Turn off Dolby Atmos. Yes, you read that right, turn off Dolby Atmos.

Now, If Sonos gave any shits at all, they would simply have one of their many users who are experiencing this POP OF DEATH problem send in their AppleTV 4K Gen 3 and Xbox, their television, their cables, and their Arc soundbar (after sending them replacement shit). Then they would have a complete system where they could CONSISTENTLY REPRODUCE THIS PROBLEM. But nope. They'd rather say "Oooh... we can't reproduce the problem!" and do NOTHING. — Every fucking time I've contacted Sonos support, they just tell me to turn off Dolby Atmos, WHICH IS THE ENTIRE FUCKING REASON I BOUGHT THE ARC IN THE FIRST PLACE! More and more I regret getting in bed with a company that doesn't give a shit about shipping a faulty product, and has been promising a fix for OVER TWO YEARS that never comes. Get a system that doesn't work.

I don't care if Sonos comes up with a special cable that filters out the problem... or sends out a firmware update... or offers to replace whatever component they can't work out with something that does... or whatever... so long as they actually come up with a fucking solution that doesn't involve turning off Atmos!

This is not fucking rocket science.

NASA could build a rocket in this amount of time.